


Like Ships Adrift (We're Swept Apart)

by breathofmidnight



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Military Backstory, POV Arthur, Pining, Remix
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 12:59:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10412682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathofmidnight/pseuds/breathofmidnight
Summary: It burns him more than he'd like to admit.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Love Is Pure Gold and Time a Thief](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8593552) by [Aja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/pseuds/Aja). 



> A remix of Aja's "Love Is Pure Gold and Time a Thief." Posted with permission.

Our summer day withers away too soon, too soon;

Speak low when you speak, love;

Our moment is swift, like ships adrift, we're swept apart, too soon.

-Ogden Nash

 

** Part 1 **

 

His name isn’t Arthur then.

It doesn’t matter then, of course, and it doesn’t matter now; he’s always worn his name like a physical yoke around his neck, the weight of his identity a constant irritating itch beneath which he’s always chafed. His name is not his own, he knows, has known for a long time; his name is fists and blood and screams in the night, throwing silverware and shattered glass on the floor.

He is the sum of his parents’ mistakes, an amalgam of hatred and disgust and wasted opportunity rolled into a fragile human shell, and though mistakes are not an option for him, a real future never has been.

It’s ironic, in the end, that it’s the military that gave him one.

They meet his first day at Fort Bragg, a short handshake as they move their identical regulation gear into the filthiest set of barracks he’s seen in his life. Arthur’s too smart, has always been too smart, and he knows it, knows the way the superior officers follow him with their eyes for the compliment it’s not intended to be. So when Arthur meets Bennett, it takes him all of two seconds to figure him out.

There’s the tiniest edge of refinement to his lazy British drawl, the slightest hint of effort in the way he holds himself; maybe not old money, but money all the same, one of those lazy silver-spoon types whose family pays through the ranks. He’s got muscle, and he’s not completely hideous, but that’s about it. The things he has going for him, Arthur decides, could fill maybe an entire thimble.

Still, there’s something in the other man’s eyes when he looks at him, a hint of dismissal, as if it’s Arthur, not Bennett, who’s failed to live up to expectation. Which is ridiculous, of course, Arthur consoles himself; Bennett isn’t Arthur, could never be Arthur, could never be as good at anything as Arthur is at this. He is good at this, the military; maybe he’s not the strongest, or the fastest, but tactics and analysis come as easily to him now as they had the first time he’d ever laid hands on a computer.

He could change the world, if he wanted to. Instead, he chose this.

He’s not breaking into American citizens’ lives in the name of national security; he’s not bolstering corrupt foreign leaders either. He chose the army, and with it, the chance to start over, and he will be the best at this, if only to prove to them all that he can.

He’s chasing his freedom, desperate and wild and far too young. He’s chasing those pictures on the shiny ROTC pamphlets, the laughing soldiers surrounded by their friends. He might be lost and desperate now, but someday, somehow, Arthur knows he will belong.

 

There are rumors that something big is happening at Fort Bragg, and it’s all the motivation he needs to really let himself get started.

Basic is harder, too much of the useless running and weight-lifting and not enough of the tactics and planning he does well. But there are the weapons, dependably accurate, and he turns to them for the easy comfort of familiarity. He knows how to get what he wants, knows what everyone wants from him and does it, over and over again, constant perfection. If they need him to be perfect, he will be; it’s that simple.

The other men whisper when he passes, and he catches the relevant bits and pieces. There are new foreign liaisons, longer meetings with the higher-ups. It doesn’t matter what it is; it’s big, and he’ll be involved, and he’ll do it to the best of his ability. When the assignments finally come, it’s exactly as he suspected. He’s a lieutenant corporal now, with a band of men at his command, and things are finally going as planned.

Bennett’s name is a surprise, but not a pleasant one. He’s seen him in training, neither the fastest nor the strongest, and he’s seen the way the other man avoids interaction in the halls. Whatever this new opportunity is, it’s the kind with a capital O, and he’ll be damned if he’ll let someone like Bennett ruin this for him. Arthur’s the best at what he does, and he’ll do it to perfection, but if Bennett falls behind, he’s not going to stoop to pick up the slack.

They’re given bigger, cleaner barracks, a new set of clearances, and a strange, whirring contraption in a shiny silver briefcase.

It’s everything Arthur never knew he wanted. It’s dreamshare, and it’s all his.

 

It’s the sheer _possibility_ of it all that frustrates him the most.

Arthur is flat on his back on a filthy cot in a locked military basement.There’s a heart monitor taped to his chest and biofeedback nodes on his skull, a military computer monitoring his every twitch. The inside of his left arm is a minefield of needle marks, pumping experimental sedative deep into his veins.

Rationally, he knows this to be true. The reality of it all, though, is a different beast altogether.

There’s sun in his eyes and sand in his lungs, seeping its way into his boots, the folds of his pants. Next to him, one of his men is bleeding out into the sand; he can _hear_ the heartbeat fading as it pulses in his hands, and the blood shooting up between his fingers is just wet enough and dark enough to be real. There’s a rock digging into his thigh, and though he’s too weak, has lost too much blood to be able to move it, it feels solid and sharp enough to be genuine.

They’re crouched behind a transparent wall, and despite their multitude of available guns and grenades, not a single one of the milling projections has been able to figure out their hiding place.

It’s beautiful, and he hates it.

Their first day in the simulation, as the higher-ups insist on calling it, Arthur had watched as a young scientist, barely three years older than himself, demolished a military base with a wave of his hand. He’d seen another man, older, weave barricades out of thin air, unleash a full-blown Nile River from the depths of the dry, cracked desert soil. The architects, he realizes quickly, are gods; in the dreamscape, they create their own paradise.

Arthur is flat on his back, asleep. When he dies, when they both bleed out, he will simply wake up.

Dreaming. Collective, shared dreaming.

It’s utter insanity.

It’s a testament to how completely wrong he was about the military that, out of all the possible uses for technology like this, they’re using it to teach their people, over and over again, quicker and easier ways to go for the kill.

When Arthur thinks about it, really lets himself sit back and consider, his deep-held frustration takes root anew. In and out of Middle Eastern deserts, every single day, the same drab militaristic base camps and dull waves of empty soldiers. He’d joined the military for the opportunity, the innovation, and now he gets to see it in action – on soldiers just like him, running the same exact scenario day in and day out. It’s not a simulation, but they’re using it like one; if their people can do a few things in the dream they could never manage in reality, that’s just a few added bonuses.

His essay for the colleges he’d never applied to had been on Escher, and his ideas of impossible architecture, visual explanations of entirely abstract concepts. Sometimes, in his freer moments, Arthur longs for them now; could the improbably physics of the dreamscape extend a paradox to three-dimensionality? He doesn’t know, and maybe he’d want to try, except –

Except, well, he’s a lieutenant corporal ex-juvenile delinquent, and if he so much as shifts a toe out of line, they’ll be on him like dogs on a rabbit, and, much as he resents the analogy, he knows he’d be fucked. So he keeps the bright-eyed eagerness of his thoughts locked tight in the deepest recesses of his mind, where even his clearest minded-self would never be able to reach.

Unfortunately, other contentious thoughts are less easy to hide.

It doesn’t start on that first day, bleeding out in the sand, too high off blood loss and euphoria to register the pain. It starts in the days, the weeks, the months after, when the handle of his gun melds naturally to the contours of his hand, when he wakes with one finger tugging at a trigger that isn’t there. It starts the first time he shoots one of his men, the first time he hears that gasp of betrayal, looks deep into another man’s agonized stare.

(By the next time he does it, and the time after that, the surprise and horror has turned into a weary sort of acceptance. The damage has already been done.)

The others are struggling, slumped beneath the weight of the toxins in their systems, their fingers weak with their own fear. At first, he feels nothing but vindication, sleek and satisfying, secure in the knowledge of his own superiority. It’s easy, almost laughably so; despite appearances, the projections are nothing but cannon fodder, wave after wave of cloned stupidity. Its ridiculous even now, and he’s sure it will sound worse in hindsight, but for the moment he lets himself relax into the mind-numbing tedium of constant death.

And in his free time, he experiments.

It starts slow, as it always does; he can only jump off so many buildings before he figures out that, even in the incredible physics of the dream world, flight is still beyond his grasp. But he’s determined to figure it out, to find that final piece of the puzzle that changes everything.

When it comes, though, it’s not him who finds it.

They’re royally fucked, as they almost always are; the map they’d been given beforehand hadn’t shown this dead end. Nearly half his squad is dead already, and Arthur’ll be damned if he lets another one die; unfortunately, the wall in question is annoyingly high, the sundried contours smooth and damnably purchase-free beneath his hands. He’s swearing under his breath, trying to think of a way out, and –

There’s a staircase, rumbling straight up from the earth beneath his feet, a perfect spiral of impossible proportions. In the moment, he decides not to think about it, but even as he’s scrambling up and away he can’t help the dull numbness of shock rising in his throat.

He wasn’t the first. All he’d needed to do was be the best, and

he wasn’t the first.

He welcomes the twisting and folding of the collapsing dream with a sort of bitter acceptance. It’s a fairly decent physical representation of the mediocrity swallowing him from within.

He’s barely blinking away the foggy sleepiness when the architect speaks.

“You did something down there,” he says, staring hard. Arthur flinches away from the ice in his tone. _Shit_.

He fakes confidence, snapping bolt upright and unhooking his cannula. “I didn’t do shit,” he bites out, angry and sharp. “But whoever it was got us out alive, or would have if your subconscious hadn’t freaked out.”

“Bullshit.” The architect – Arthur can’t remember his name – is pacing now, a lean stalk akin to a bristling lion. “You manipulated the dreamscape. How did you do it? You know you’re not supposed to be working on that kind of exercise down there without official oversight. How did you _do_  it?”

He’s openly furious, slinging words like knives. It’s laughably easy to rile him up further. “I told you. I didn’t do it. But if you really don’t know who’s manipulating your dreams when you’re in them, I’d say that’s a flaw in the program, wouldn’t you?”

It feels awful, wrong, pushing away the other man’s accusations – it’s not that he wants to take the blame, but goddammit, that should have been him, should’ve been his superior focus and attention manifesting itself in a way no one else’s could. This had been his chance, his one opportunity to prove himself the best, and he’d fucked it up. And now, being forced to admit as much in front of his men – it’s humiliating.

“Well,” the architect blusters, offering him a smile so fake he can practically see his own reflection in the other man’s teeth. “I suppose we’ll have to work on that, shan’t we.”

Arthur nods in reply, self-hate weighing like a stone in his stomach.

The next day, they let them start on manipulating objects – let them do it because, now that they know they could, every man of them is desperate to try. They’re given small rocks and piles of sand, and let loose.

The men are exhausted, high on Somnacin and otherwise sleep-deprived. Naturally, it’s a disaster.

He’s able to hold himself back for a day or two, but once they let him at the sand all bets are off. It’s an incredible rush, being able to work with the impossible rules of the dream world in the way he’d always wanted to, and the shapes flow, one into the other, straight from his mind into reality. He builds palaces, cathedrals of sand, tiny looming pillars and swooping arches. He loses himself in the work, and for those single brief, shining moments, building sandcastles alone in his dreams, everything is perfect.

Not everyone is doing as well, he notices distantly; Bennett especially watches him like a hawk, a strange glint in his eyes Arthur knows instantly to be jealousy. For the most part, Arthur ignores him completely, forcing himself deeper into the exhilarating madness of creation. This is what he was born to do, and he can see in the way the scientists look at him that they know it, too. When he sees them whispering, satisfaction burns warm in his chest.

Downstairs, as he’s come to think of it, he puts this new reality to the test; simulation after simulation of bullets and fire and death, with the added element of pure creation. He can move in dreams like he never could in reality, swift and fast and crazy, and he loves it so much that he almost doesn’t care how much the others are falling behind.

Arthur only cares that much at all, to be honest, because he knows they’re watching, waiting for him to crack under the pressure. He won’t be the first; he can see the way Bennett struggles, feels his lack of presence when he loses his way, again and again and again. Bennett’s problems in the dreams are the least of his worries, but if one man drags behind, the whole team could suffer for it, and as a commander, he can’t let that happen. His team has to be the best; he can’t have it any other way.

Bennett is nice enough outside the dreams; he bonds with janitors and receptionists, chats up the privates who guard them while they sleep, the security guards and scientists who watch and study their every twitch. Arthur’s seen him in the bars, too, a girl on each arm, tipping his hat to ladies and bartenders alike. Bennett’s accent gets fancier, somehow, when he talks to them; his attempts to charm, however effective, are painfully transparent.

But the second the lights go off, Arthur stops caring; it’s him, and the mission, and the dream, and that’s what’s important.

 

In hindsight, Arthur probably should have seen this coming.

There are three PASIVS for the main project, hulking metallic carcasses of needles and wires, around which security guards and scientists buzz like flies. The scientists’ shifts are designed for maximum coverage, and the guards change on the hour; with all the care and costs the military’s put into PASIV security, the chances of someone actually managing to make it out with a dream device are infinitesimal.

Supposedly, there’s a fourth PASIV, a prototype, shoved away in some back shelf with a single security camera. Taking that one would’ve been – well, difficult, but comparatively far, far easier.

Whoever took it would’ve had to know about the prototype in the first place. They would’ve had to know how dismantle the room’s closed-feed security cameras before the theft. And, based on the relative size of the device, in order to make it out undetected, they would’ve had to know how to disassemble it completely.

Arthur’s furious at the sheer _effort_ of the whole thing. This was _his_ device, _his_ domain, highly classified and experimental as it was. And they’ve taken that from him.

The investigation’s barely started before the Lieutenant-Colonel pulls him aside, the rest of his men watching curiously in the background. The commanding officer’s face is hard.

“Do you know anything about this?”

Arthur blinks, confusion a buzzing haze in his mind. “Nothing, sir.”

The Lieutenant-Colonel nods acceptance. “Very well,” he answers, stepping away, but Arthur sees the way he looks at him, narrow-eyed and cold, the same way his father used to look at him. Unease twists his gut. He looks away.

The investigation continues, but he knows better now. It’s worse, seeing the way they look at him, their distrust and fear clear on their faces. He’d wanted to be the best, and somehow he thinks he might have overshot the mark; there’s no respect in their faces now, only a terrible smug disdain. They think he’s lying; they think he doesn’t know, and they imagine they have power over him this way. He’s given them nothing but honesty and effort, poured his heart and soul into the dreamscape, and in return, they give him this.

The more Arthur denies it, the more they look at him. It’s maddening and awful and he can feel the tension building. When the dam breaks, the architect – Miles, he knows now – leads them into another dreamscape, ties them up, and pulls out the torture devices. “Extraction,” he calls it, a horrible smug little smile playing on his lips, and Arthur sees red.

He doesn’t know which of the other men, his men, are guilty. He doesn’t care. He, and most of the others, are innocent, and they’re going to torture them anyway.

One of the men reaches for him, and he explodes.

He wakes to adrenaline, lurching upright and readying himself for more. The officers are deathly pale, their terror clear on their smug faces. Arthur doesn’t need them to tell him it’s over.

He’s called to meet Miles directly, standing ramrod-straight in front of the architect’s desk, hands clenched white behind his back to prevent them from trembling. The other man looks at him for a while, contemplative and calm, before he finally speaks.

“This doesn’t have to be the end, Arthur.”

It’s strange, hearing his first name from an officer’s lips; he forces himself to hide his instinctive flinch. Still, something must show in his face, because Miles softens, light eyes oddly bright in his lined face.

“You’re a gifted young man, you know.”

There’s no challenge in his face, his voice, but Arthur’s angry and tired of being manipulated. He lifts his chin, narrows his eyes, conveying his challenge the only way he knows how. “Not a gifted soldier?”

Miles laughs, genuine and soft. “You’re not a soldier.”

It’s true, painfully so, and he has no idea how to respond. “Then what am I?” he asks, and then, because he should, “sir.”

Miles’ smile fades. He leans back in his chair, offering Arthur a considering frown. “That,” he murmurs, soft and calm, “depends entirely on you.”

If Arthur was lost before, now he’s falling without a parachute. Some of his confusion must show on his face, because Miles laughs again, short and bitter, rising slowly from his desk.

“I created the dreamscape, you know.” He waves a hand to the pictures on the wall – brain scans, sharp and colorful. Strings of data scroll in white across the bottom, random collections of letters and numbers that must translate, somehow, into the worlds inside Arthur’s head. “I’ve been involved in this project for nearly twenty years. And what does the military do with my most prized invention?” He sighs sadly, gesturing faintly at the piles of paperwork below.

“Murder,” Arthur manages, surprising himself; the words come creaky and sharp from his dry throat. Miles shakes his head, annoyed.

“Not quite. But close enough.” He pauses, considering. Weighing his words, Arthur realizes, and for the first time, he begins to sense something out of the ordinary in this meeting.

“They wanted to extract, you know.” Arthur’s brow furrows, not following, but the other man’s eyes gleam. “The military. They wanted to be able to take things – imagine that.” He laughs, exhilarated. “Stealing ideas from people’s dreams. It could’ve happened, of course,” he continues. “That was the whole point, you know, of building the soldiers up like that; if they – we, that is – could get you proficient in the dreamscape, you could use it to trick their minds, induce them – well.” Miles glances up again, light eyes flickering over Arthur’s uncomprehending face. “But you didn’t let them.”

Arthur doesn’t understand. “I didn’t let them...” He hesitates, rolling the unfamiliar word across his tongue. “Extract?”

Miles grins, blindingly bright. “Exactly.” He’s on Arthur’s side of the desk now, talking rapidly in his ear. “Your subconscious...it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. And the military wants to throw it all away?” He’s almost ridiculous in his enthusiasm, but those brilliant eyes are damn near magnetic. “We could use you, Arthur,” he finishes, putting a hand on Arthur’s shoulder and leaning in close.

Arthur blinks, confused. “Once I leave the military.”

Miles nods. “Yes.”

His anger rises again, blinding. “You want me to leave the military and come work for you? After everything – how fucking hard I’ve worked here, you want me to just –“

Miles pulls back, astonished. “This is an exit interview, Arthur.”

The world drops out from under him. He sways, dizzy with shock and terrible understanding, and Miles grabs him again, holding him upright while he struggles for breath. “What?” he manages, desperate and cold. “But...”

But he needs this job, he wants to say, wants to _scream_. He _needs_ this, the military, the order and prestige and the _dreamshare,_ god. He needs that feeling, that _power_ , pure creation running through his veins, the illusion of sun too hot on his face and sand too sharp beneath his fingers. Arthur can’t walk away from this, not now, now that he knows the power hidden just below the surface; it’s his now, and he craves it more than he’s ever wanted drugs.

He thinks he might pass out, or vomit, or cry. He doesn’t know which is worse.

Distantly, he knows he’s shaking, Miles’ hand the only thing keeping him upright. When he comes back to himself, his throat feels like sandpaper, working open and closed without a sound. Miles’ smile is sympathetic.

“Do you need to sit down?” he asks, but Arthur’s already shaking his head. The walls of the office are glass; he won’t let his men, those who respect him, be the ones to see him cry.

“Do I have to fill out any paperwork, sir?” he asks dully. Miles is still searching his face as he pulls away, reaching for a pen and waving him towards some papers. He sinks down into the other man’s chair, anger and sadness and horrible disappointment welling in his chest. He was supposed to be the best, and he’d failed.

He’d failed.

He doesn’t remember filling out the paperwork – it’s a general discharge, not dishonorable, he could still find work in the government after, if he wanted.

He doesn’t. He’d probably flunk out there, too.

When he’s standing, finally, his hand stained blue from gripping the pen too tight, Miles’ smile is sympathetic; he squeezes his shoulder and offers him a business card. Arthur doesn’t smile back, not then; it’s all he can do to pack up his stuff and leave, staggering out of the barracks for the last time.

The sun is shining, and the bag on his back weighs heavy on his shoulders; all Arthur can feel is numb.

He gets a cab to Raleigh; the airport in Fayetteville only offers domestic flights. He doesn’t know if he has the money for an international flight, not now, but he doesn’t know what else to do. Maybe he can fly to New York, he thinks wildly, but he has no idea what he’d do from there. Hacking only pays the bills so far before the police come knocking. This was supposed to be his wake-up call, his rescue from extinction; the military was supposed to be his redemption. Instead, he thinks bitterly, he’s riding away from everything he’d ever wanted, heartbroken and alone.

He gets a shitty motel on the outskirts of Raleigh. He sleeps. He drinks.

There’s a bar down the road, bright and loud, with cheap beer and teenage girls who ooh and aah over the dog tags on his neck. He doesn’t have much money, but what he does have, he spends. Days drag into weeks, and the nights blur into an endless stream of darkness, vague images flashing from every direction. Some mornings, he wakes alone, screaming himself hoarse, bullets and blood swimming behind his eyelids.

He drinks to forget, and to soothe the drums beating heavy in his temples. When he’s drunk, the lights get brighter and the girls get prettier and the blood is somehow just a little bit farther away.

He wakes up with a man, once. It happens again, a few days later. They all sort of fade together in the end.

The money runs out eight months and three days after his departure from Fort Bragg. When he finally puzzles it all out, sitting bleary and hungover on the floor of his motel room, his empty wallet spread out before him, it occurs to him to wonder how it lasted that long in the first place. He’s just drunk enough that the thought slides away, half finished, fading into the buzzing whiteness of his mind.

He turns his bag inside-out, sifts through the wreckage for something he might have missed. His movements are labored, clumsy and slow, and he hates himself for it, hates that he’s let himself go like this in the first place. His clothes are less than useless, faded and worn, and he’s just let himself start to believe he has nothing left when he sees it.

It’s white cardstock, the heavy expensive kind, creased and faded from its time in his bag. The printing is black, plain and clear beneath a logo he doesn’t want to think about. When he turns it over, there’s a string of numbers scribbled in blue ink. His fingers twist reflexively, and he drops the card. The fuzzy whiteness in his mind vanishes in an instant, breath catching painful in his chest.

There’s sixteen cents in his wallet; he’ll need another four for the payphone. First, though, he needs a shower, a shave, anything to wipe away the lingering sense of desperation clinging to his skin. He’ll need to iron his pants, probably – he doesn’t remember how, but he’ll figure it out. He doesn’t know how to access his paychecks – he’s never had a credit card – but he needs to find out. There is, or there will be, a ticket to Paris with his name on it; punctuality is no longer an expectation.

After all, Arthur is the best dreamshare specialist in the world.

And it seems Dominic Cobb is his first client.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for so long, it's a miracle I'm actually posting! For the record, I'm usually more of a short-fiction prose writer, and before starting this crazy project, my longest piece was 3,000 words.
> 
> (40,000 to go?)
> 
> Massive thanks to the incredible Aja for letting me mess around with her canon and, y'know, join the fandom instead of lurking awkwardly in the background.


End file.
